Peter Henderson

A paper has been circulating twitter which suggests some ‘facts’ about crime. It seems unusually concrete and useful for an academic piece.

These facts are:

1. Crime is highly concentrated by place. Most crime happens in a small number of places (i.e. ‘hotspots). The concentration of crime is even greater if one focuses on more serious crimes.
2. Crime is also concentrated by times of day, days of the week, and months. Summers, nights, and week-ends are peak times for violence
3. Most of the criminal offending is generated by a small fraction of people
4. A subset of serious crimes generates the most harm – violent crimes are the costliest
5. The rate of offending peaks in early adulthood, consistent with the “age-crime curve”
6. People do not specialize in specific offenses
7. Offending occurs within social networks, and the most active offenders tend to be clusters within dense networks

I think there’s probably an eighth fact missing about the contexts and backgrounds of people who conduct the most frequent or serious offences. They are likely to themselves be victims of violence, trauma, and extremely challenging circumstances. Their involvement in violence is often driven by exploitation, victimisation and self-protection.

The full document reflects on how these facts should shape an approach to crime prevention. Worth a read.